Senator Ted Cruz Invites Eric Weinstein to Diagnose the United States

It is critically important for you to watch this one-hour video, "The Verdict," Hosted by Senator Ted Cruz. If you are thinking "Why the fuck would I want to see any show hosted by Ted Cruz, you are a big part of the problem, because on this show (released July 23) Cruz has reached far from his comfort zone, inviting Eric Weinstein as a guest. If you are worried about the future of the United States, I guarantee that you have an hour for this.

I follow Eric Weinstein on Twitter and on the "Dark Web" because he is consistently brilliant. I found this video on Weinstein's Twitter feed. I didn't quite know what to expect if you put Eric in the same room as Ted Cruz, but it was riveting, and I respect Cruz for giving Weinstein lots of space to present ideas that are highly critical of both the left and the right. The resulting conversation was not out of any typical political playbook and it offers promising new ways to conceptualize intransigent national conundrums.

Topics included the abject failure of both political parties. The rise of the Maoists on the Left. The fact that the moderates of the two dominant parties need to jettison their extremes and come together. "WTF happened in 1971?" The fact that "rent-seeking" (the practice by which the source of one's wealth is non-productive) has destroyed national growth; the resulting economic stress is exposing social pathogens that have always been around, but they are now more visible. The modern media as Shakespeare's character of Iago, poisoning our national dialogue at every turn. "Russell Conjugations" (referencing Bertrand Russell). Our failure to practice "Critical Feelings" (as opposed to critical thinking) ("Most of our feelings are not OUR feelings, but feelings that we inherit through daily programming, convincing us that those people that think differently than us are evil." The failures of universities. The lies about immigration that are a cover-up to a scheme to exchange citizenship for free university labor. That a successful national response to COVID-19 should have been a "layup," and what this failure says about us (our entire leadership class of both parties is "unworkable").

[Ted Cruz]: How do we get from Othello to midsummer night's dream?

[Eric Weinstein]:

The key issue is that we have to start talking about our own failures. What I hope you've heard is that I'm willing to call out the Left, the right, and the libertarian. The libertarian problem is that it doesn't work to pretend that we're all atomistic. We see that with respect to contagion and masks and the like. Arnold Kling has this beautiful description. He says that you have three Groups: progressives conservatives and Libertarians. Libertarians are animated principally by hating coercion, progressives are animated principally by hating oppression, and conservatives are principally animated by needless loss of hard-won traditions and gains over past generations. The answer is that any sensible person should want to make sure that they're optimizing among the three, and not to become part of a simplistic situation whereby they so hate coercion or so hate oppression that they lose sight of the entire picture and therefore lose the plot of the American Project.

Continue ReadingSenator Ted Cruz Invites Eric Weinstein to Diagnose the United States

How to Become an Award-Winning Woke Researcher Overnight, and Why this is a Terrible Thing for Civil Rights in America.

How to become an award-winning Woke all-star author instantly, and why the success of this pranking-seeming project is a terrible thing for civil rights in America. Special Honor to physicist Alan Sokal for pioneering this approach to pouring sunshine on nonsense. James Lindsay, Peter Boghossian and Helen Pluckrose did the hard work to make this happen.

Continue ReadingHow to Become an Award-Winning Woke Researcher Overnight, and Why this is a Terrible Thing for Civil Rights in America.

Matt Taibbi: “The Left is Now the Right”

Once again, Taibbi is spot on. He ends his blistering critique of the "anti-racist" left with this:  "Ambrose Bierce once wrote there were “two instruments worse than a clarinet — two clarinets.” What would he say about authoritarian movements?"

Taibbi now publishes in a variety of places, but his writing "day job" is now on his own website here. I highly recommend subscribing, in that his writing is never tethered by party politics and is always analytically sharp and permeated with his creative wit.

The following is an excerpt from Taibbi's article, "The Left is Now the Right," where he puts a laser beam on the Smithsonian Museum racism, among other things:

Take the Smithsonian story. The museum became the latest institution to attempt to combat racism by pledging itself to “antiracism,” a quack sub-theology that in a self-clowning trick straight out of Catch-22 seeks to raise awareness about ignorant race stereotypes by reviving and amplifying them.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture created a graphic on “Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture” that declared the following white values: “the scientific method,” “rational, linear thinking,” “the nuclear family,” “children should have their own rooms,” “hard work is the key to success,” “be polite,” “written tradition,” and “self-reliance.” White food is “steak and potatoes; bland is best,” and in white justice, “intent counts.”

The astute observer will notice this graphic could equally have been written by white supremacist Richard Spencer or History of White People parodist Martin Mull. It seems impossible that no one at one of the country’s leading educational institutions noticed this messaging is ludicrously racist, not just to white people but to everyone (what is any person of color supposed to think when he or she reads that self-reliance, politeness, and “linear thinking” are white values?).

The exhibit was inspired by white corporate consultants with Education degrees like Judith Katz and White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo, who themselves echo the work of more consultants with Ed degrees like Glenn Singleton of Courageous Conversations. Per the New York Times, Courageous Conversations even teaches that “written communication over other forms” and “mechanical time” (i.e. clock time) are tools by which “whiteness undercuts Black kids.”

The notion that such bugbears as as time, data, and the written word are racist has caught fire across the United States in the last few weeks, igniting calls for an end to virtually every form of quantitative evaluation in hiring and admissions, including many that were designed specifically to combat racism.

Continue ReadingMatt Taibbi: “The Left is Now the Right”